


Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

by benrumo



Series: Inquisitor Cesare Lavellan Desperately Tries Not to Ruin Everything [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-02 23:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2830640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benrumo/pseuds/benrumo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inquisitor has something very important to discuss with Dorian. Things rapidly go downhill from there.</p><p>You don’t just go around touching another man’s staff, regardless of how friendly you might be with one another.</p><p>(Works in series are not sequential, just same-universe.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Dorian's romance (about midway through, not all) and plot events up to reaching Skyhold.

Creators, how do people do this? You are hiding on a staircase. You are actually hiding on a staircase. This is not very becoming of the grand and mighty Inquisitor.

“Inquisitor,” Fiona says, surprised to find you as she starts down the stairs. “Good day.”

“Yes, good day,” you manage to stutter out over the pounding of your heart.

Well, there’s no turning away now, not after she’s alerted the entire tower to our presence. You force yourself up the stairs.

Dorian’s right where you expected him to be, claiming the best of the library’s light. He’s leaning against the windowsill in a way that wouldn’t look half as suggestive if anyone other than him were doing it. Or maybe that’s just your eyes deceiving you. They, along with every other part of your body, seem to have a rather biased view of Dorian.

“Dorian,” you begin, feeling just for an instant like you’re not a complete and total coward. Then he looks up from his book and words desert you completely.

“A pleasure to see you, Inquisitor, as always,” he greets you, charming as ever.

You think about asking him whether he might be inclined to wear a bag over his head for the duration of the conversation, but instead politely ask if he has a minute to spare.

“For you, I have hours.”

You really don’t think anyone should be allowed to sound like that. Is he doing that intentionally, you wonder? You hope so. If this isn’t what trying looks like on him, you’re not sure you could survive a genuine attempt.

“There’s something we need to discuss,” you start before your courage can fail you. “Preferably soon, before anything has the chance to spontaneously catch fire or the sun ceases to rise.”

You need to do this. You have to do this if you want this to go forward, and Maker do you want this to go forward.

Dorian frowns.

“I’m no good with surprises, Inquisitor. You’ll find I’m much less peevish if you deliver bad news as swiftly as possible,” he says, returning his book to the shelf as he does. “Has my father been in contact with you again? Is that what this is about?”

“No, nothing like that,” you hurriedly assure him. “It’s… more personal than that.”

“More personal than family?” he teases before adding “Well, that’s not hard to achieve when the family in question is mine, I suppose.”

“I am explaining myself terribly,” you apologize while desperately seeking the right words.

“You mean…” He finally seems to hit the mark.

Your dread seems to be catching. Excellent. And here you were thinking this couldn’t possibly get worse.

“I’d feel much more comfortable having this conversation elsewhere,” you force out.

“Of course,” he says, voice deadly diplomatic. “Lead the way.”

Cassandra catches you in the main hall. Naturally. Whatever made you think that this would go smoothly?

“Inquisitor, I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time. I am concerned about the ghost stories that have been circulating—”

“Could we perhaps have this conversation in an hour’s time?” you beg.

She seems to notice Dorian for the first time. You doubt her conclusions are anything close to the truth. You will no doubt have fun setting that record straight later.

“Of course,” she says graciously. “You know where to find me.”

You rush up to your quarters before you have the misfortune of another friend crossing your path.

“Alright,” Dorian says once you reach the top of the stairs. “What’s all this about?”

“I need to tell you something,” you say, looking at anything and everything in the room but Dorian. “Before this goes any further.”

“Oh, goodie. I love these conversations,” he says, voice laced with a venom you’re not sure is entirely contrived. “This isn’t my first dance, Inquisitor. I know what to expect from a man of your position. Some things are the same across Thedas.”

You’re completely thrown off.

“What?” you manage, if just barely. It honestly takes you a moment to understand which direction he’s steering the conversation in.

“Look, I’m…” Dorian sighs and you can tell he’s aiming for restrained. “I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic. A Dalish Herald of Andraste? And a mage on top of that? You’ve certainly got enough on your plate without adding me into the mix. And I am a stubborn and willful man. I admit that. But if there was one man in all of Thedas I’d be willing to make compromises for…”

The expression on his face is as bitter as it is affectionate.

“I wouldn’t ask that of you,” you try and assure him, desperate to regain control over the conversation though you have no idea how at this point.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” he says dismissively. “Noble to the end, as usual. So let’s skip the part where you have to ask and get straight to my answer: You’d find I’d be more willing to bear the shackles of our circumstances if I was convinced that one day they might come off. But can you genuinely tell me that you believe that all of this is just going to end when Corypheus is defeated? If anything, the scrutiny and the politics are bound to get worse.”

He sits down on the couch in a manner you’d deem comically dramatic and crafted for effect if the topic at hand weren’t so damn serious. You are quite certain he didn’t plan that particular action out, as the hand that kneads lightly at his brow hides an authentically pained face.

“I don’t think I can allow myself to live like that,” he finishes quietly. “Not even for you.”

The expression he wears when he drops his hand leaves you utterly conflicted. Which should take precedent, the small spark of joy you feel knowing he wouldn’t submit himself even to love or your abject terror you feel when faced with the reality that if you pushed him far enough he would actually leave? You push the petty fear down with the knowledge that you’d never ask this of him (while praying you’re never forced to ask for worse) before turning your focus to abating his.

“If that’s your biggest concern at this point then you’ll be glad to hear that I have a rather simple solution,” you say, taking his hand and pulling him up off the couch. “Come on, we’ll head downstairs and spend the next hour kissing one another on the throne. We’ll stay there until the entire court’s seen us with their own eyes.”

He swears and pulls his hand out of yours.

“You’re damn infuriating sometimes, you know that? You can’t make this go away by simply pretending it doesn’t exist.”

“Wait one moment, I need to check something.”

You make a show of tracing the tips of your ears through your hair.

“No, still there. And I appear to be just as slight of build as I was yesterday. Tell me, has my face suddenly become as bare as a babe’s arse?”

“I do hope you’re approaching a point. Your wit is as wanting as your decorative sense.”

“I didn’t become Inquisitor through politicking. I’m not here because I was the right choice. I’m here because I was the only choice.”

“You know that the anchor is not the reason you hold the sword. You could have been their weapon and nothing more. Instead, they made you their leader.”

“Ah, so then my position is secured twice over, because they certainly didn’t elect me on basis of the popularity of my decisions,” you press. “Until taking you to my bed somehow manages to diminish either myself or this mark on my hand, I fail to see the issue. Besides, I’d welcome a replacement. Let those three bull-headed humans argue themselves hoarse. Let Cassandra take up the mantle. It’s an entirely thankless job, like herding fennec.”

Dorian looks infuriated, though you think it’s mainly due to his own lack of rebuttal.

“If you think that I’m somehow lesser for your company, then you’re a fool and I’m shipping you and your damn books back on the first ship to Tevinter,” you threaten. “I will ship every last soldier at my command back home if that’s what it takes to rid Skyhold of the belief that you are anything to be ashamed of.”

A year ago you could have never imagined being so blatantly… well, _romantic_. You thought people only spoke like this in Varric’s halfpenny novels. But the look on Dorian’s face makes it all too easy and more than worth it. The slight blush. The way he can’t quite meet your eyes. That’s where you see it. That’s how you know he’s just as terrified of this as you are.

“The greatest talent at your disposal is your ability to make the impossible sound reasonable,” he says.

When he kisses you, you know it’s because it’s the only way he knows how to handle it, this wild and desperate thing that’s growing at a rate neither one of you feels in control of. You know it because you feel it too. You both fight the rushing current of it in your own way. You hide on staircases. You pretend you know what you’re doing. You let your words fly fast and sharp because they’re the only thing that flies faster than your heart. But you’re both so fucking fragile. Sometimes you have no choice but to dive straight in and pretend that the direction you’re getting pulled is the direction you were heading all along. You say what he can’t, he does what you wouldn’t dare, and somehow you make it through without getting broken.

“Wait a moment,” he says, pulling back just a hair’s breadth. “If you don’t give a damn then… this isn’t what you wanted to talk about, was it?”

You resist the urge to pout. How does he manage to go on thinking while doing _that_?

“You couldn’t have figured that out ten minutes ago?” you complain.

“Now that my insecurities have been laid bare it’s only fair of you to return the favor, isn’t it?” he needles. “What could possibly frighten the mighty Inquisitor more than the wrath of a proper court?”

Your dread is back in full force.

“I feel we’ve had more than our share of extreme emotions for one evening, don’t you? Perhaps it would be wise to leave it for another time.”

“Don’t you dare! You’ve roused my curiosity now,” he stops you from retreating. “Honestly, how bad could it be? If you were going to break things off, you just missed a brilliant opportunity. And just in case you’ve forgotten, the world is in fact ending. Do try and keep things in perspective.”

“Where was that exceptional line of logic when you were so concerned about my blighted appearance?”

“You’re just sore you didn’t think of it first,” he says, wrapping an arm around you. “Come, we’ll sit down and talk it out like proper adults.”

He pushes you down onto the couch before seating himself directly on top of you.

“ _There_ ,” he says in that particular damnable pitch that always leaves you feeling out of your depth. “This is cozy, isn’t it?”

You feel the Dread Wolf nipping at your heels and damn it, but he’s right. If you are to lose him, it is only because you never had him in the first place. You find some spark of courage within you and use it to give yourself what you want more than anything in this moment. You trace the seam on the outer side of his thigh with the palm of your hand. Your fingers ghost just underneath. Dorian’s breath catches and then releases in gasping laughter as you reach your destination. You look up at him as if daring him to remove your hand from his arse.

His response is nothing if not enthusiastic. You greedily let your second hand join your first as he kisses you senseless, one hand sliding through your hair to pull you closer. Creators, but you’d almost go to the Dread Wolf willingly if it meant this being your final mortal moment.

“There now,” he says at length. “I believe that quite drove the halla from your eyes. Now what was it you wanted to discuss?”

You swear colorfully in the language of your ancestors, mainly because you know it irritates him to hear the one language he isn’t fluent in. He chooses only to smile gleefully at you and twist a bit of your hair in his fingers. This does not bode well.

“What are you doing?” you stop to question him.

“You know, I rather like how easily a kiss distracts you. I, however, do not share the same weakness.”

You finally notice where his other hand has wandered off to.

Magic lights up the room the moment Dorian’s hand touches your staff, discarded thoughtlessly beside the couch. You instinctively move out from under him to try and get it back. You don’t just go around touching another man’s staff, regardless of how friendly you might be with one another.

Dorian pushes you back down onto the couch before you can move far.

“I wouldn’t if I was you,” he warns before gesturing towards the fading glyph on the floor. Ice, quite obviously. Likely to attempt to freeze your feet to the floor if you dare step one foot off the couch. Much more than that you can’t tell. Its entire construction is foreign to you, as much of Dorian’s magic is. Too many angles, too much reliance on his own power, and far too beautiful for the pure functionality you were taught by your Keeper.

“You can’t trap me in my own bloody quarters with magic!”

“I’d like to see you dismiss that one. It’s some of my best work. I spent weeks picking the exact right runes.”

You blast some pure force from the Fade in hopes of breaking it through sheer willpower and luck. All that accomplishes is amusing Dorian. You look up from the glyph for just long enough to curse him and his mother to his face (in your first tongue, of course) before you take another stab at deciphering the runes. It’s pointless, of course. Your knowledge of shemlen form is too limited. Perhaps if Dorian were a complete idiot with no natural talent you’d stand a chance.

“As amusing as this is, you really shouldn’t bother, especially not without this,” he taunts you with your own blighted staff.

“Give me my staff,” you order, as if you somehow imagine that will work.

“Oh, well, since you asked so nicely…”

He throws your staff across the room. You swear again.

“I hope you have a plan for getting us out of here.”

“All in good time, dear Inquisitor.”

“Must you always be so damn dramatic? Did you forget that my entire purpose in bringing you up here was to tell you willingly? That was, of course, before you completely stole the conversation away from me!”

“True. A terrible habit, I’m afraid. I do apologize.”

“You just wanted to show off your damn mine, didn’t you?”

“Showing off will be when you see what it does to our enemies.”

“If I acknowledge the genius of your silly little ice mine will you let me go?”

“Do you truly think me so easily placated?”

“What are you going to do if I sit here stubbornly in silence? I think we both know you grow bored far more easily than I do.”

“What makes you think I’m trapped here?”

To demonstrate he steps directly on the glyph without setting it off. Of course he’d manage to craft a discriminating ice mine he can cast in under a second. He’s probably disappointed you ever doubted him.

But Dorian’s arrogance is, as always, his downfall. If he takes just another step away from the couch…

You’re already in the air by the time Dorian turns to gloat. The look on his face is worth more gold than a hundred giants could carry. You scramble up his stupidly tall shem body and use his stupidly broad shem shoulders as a branch to launch yourself from where he stands to the bed without ever once touching the ground.

“Ha!” you let out a victory cry as you land safely on the bed.

Dorian is nowhere to be seen. You panic for a moment that he’s planning a counterattack. Then you find him sprawled across his silly little glyph.

“Are you alright?” you ask, just the tiniest bit concerned.

“You…” he growls from the ground.

You don’t try too terribly hard to escape when he pins you down to the bed.

“You sneaky little bastard,” he says, trying to look properly angry. “Absolutely no appreciation for true beauty.”

“You might want to be careful how often you disparage my taste,” you warn him. “After all, I did choose you.”

“The exception which proves the rule.”

You kiss him this time, eager to set all distractions aside and have him purely to yourself for this one moment. (This one last moment, the darker half of your soul unhelpfully reminds you.) Dorian kisses with the same dedication with which he takes to every task. Teasing, playful, and demanding of your absolute attention. You wonder what he’d do if you tried to take the lead, if you held him down and made him blind with pleasure. You desperately want to find out.

For all his earlier bragging, Dorian does seem at last wholly absorbed in kissing you. His hands find your hair again. You’re beginning to sense a certain fondness on his part for your hair. You don’t quite understand it. His doesn’t appeal to you overly much. The feeling of the styled hair on his face was somewhat odd at first. You’d never exactly considered courting a human before Dorian. It was… surprising in a way you slowly grew fond of. You’re not sure you could imagine Dorian without it now.

Your hand finds his arse again. If there is a part of Dorian for which you are growing an oddly specific fondness for, it is certainly his arse.

You both content yourself with slow, intimate kisses for a time. Your smiling eyes meet every so often in the small world of touch you have secluded yourselves off in. It’s simple. Easy, even. More so than you ever would have imagined it to be.

Of course it has to end.

One of his hands works its way down your chest. You don’t think anything of it until his fingers slip underneath your tunic. Oh, to the Maker with your entire damn existence.

“Dorian…”

His hand stills, but doesn’t fully pull back.

“Do you really want me to stop?” he asks calmly.

“No,” you say honestly.

You hate how your life is still bound by this, even after everything you did.

Dorian unfortunately takes your honesty for approval and moves his hand further up your torso.

“Wait, wait!” you hastily pull away.

Dorian sits back, his disappointment palpable.

You have to tell him. Now.

“I have to…” you try and start. “We can’t. Not until you know.”

“Whatever it is,” he says quietly, “can we please just get it out in the open now? I can’t do this tip-toeing around the looming secret thing.”

“I…”

The Dread Wolf’s teeth close around your throat. You can’t speak so you rip your tunic off instead.

Dorian is startled for about the half-second it takes him to notice the scar.

“That’s blood magic,” he starts, eyes darting from your face back down to the scar.

It’s an ugly thing. You’ve seen men burned and it doesn’t compare. It doesn’t even look like a proper scar. Where scars are often raised, yours is sunken in. It spreads across your lower abdomen, purple and blistered, as if some monster had gutted you as easily as a wolf tears out the throat of a halla.

You drop your head down on the bed and close your eyes. It’s done. The worst of it is done.

“I hope you realize that this is going to require some kind of explanation,” Dorian says, voice still hushed.

“When I first discovered that Krem was passing, I asked him if he’d change through magic if he had the chance,” you say, the words coming easier now that you’re not so damn scared of the inevitable. “He said he couldn’t imagine risking it all at the hands of forces he could never trust. I can’t say I blame him.”

You run a hand over your stomach, oddly growing less self-conscious with every second you’re ogled. And you are certainly being ogled right now, though not for the reasons you’d prefer.

“Blood magic isn’t inherently evil or corrupting,” you say. “It just requires a great sacrifice to preform correctly.”

“What did you give up?”

“Nothing I’ve missed.” _Much_ , you mentally add. “The better question is what did I gain?”

You start your story at the beginning and tell it as clearly as you can. You tell him of the girl born to clan Lavellan who could never quite make sense of the world. You tell him how she was quiet to the point of silence because words never seemed to bridge the gap between that scared little girl and others. You tell him what it’s like to live blind and stumbling through the world. You tell him of desperation, resignation, binding yourself down to what’s real without question. You tell him what it’s like to give up because no one ever told you there was an alternative. You tell him about the girl who never feared the Dread Wolf, and how she cried the night she was supposed to receive her Vallaslin.

You tell him about the girl who risked everything because there are some things worse than death. You tell him of the outcast she met in the woods, the city elf from Kirkwall who taught her more of the old magic than any Keeper. You tell him about the woman who promised she could help, though one of them might die in the trying.

“When I came back, it was just… easier. It was like discovering spring after a lifetime of winter. I never understood what it was to feel because my hands and feet were always frozen. I didn’t understand the weight of the frost on my back until I was free of it. I didn’t understand what it was to run until my muscles grew warm for the first time,” you say, speaking to the dark insides of your eyelids more than Dorian. This isn’t a tale you’ve had many chances to tell. “I don’t know if I could ever do it justice with mere words.”

Your frustration at that is probably the first thing you’ve felt in the whole telling of this sordid tale. You wish you were able to explain it and have it make sense, but of the few you’ve trusted with the tale Krem was the only one who seemed to understand.

“The Vallaslin mark the passage into adulthood. We dedicate ourselves to the lessons of the past. Before, I swore to everyone who would listen that I was bound to Andruil, goddess of the hunt. I ran until none could leave me behind. I climbed until I stood above them all. But to be honest, I was the worst damn hunter in the clan. I hate hunting. Still do. You’ve seen that well enough yourself. But I was determined to avoid my true calling by any means at my disposal.”

You trace the winding lines of the branches that mark your face down to the great eye between your brows.

“Sylaise, of the hearth and the home-tree. Her way is Vir Atish’an, the Way of Peace. The rarest of callings, one heard almost exclusively by women,” you laugh quietly. Oh, the pain that had caused you once upon a time. It was a hard lesson, learning that some things cannot be changed. “That night, when the girl I was cried at the first touch of the stone to her face, it was because she knew she couldn’t live every moment of her life tearing at her own skin, forcing herself into a shape her flesh was never meant to hold. She couldn’t give herself to Andruil with a happy heart, so she ran.

“When I came back, accepting Vir Atish’an didn’t hurt anymore. I knew it was my calling, and I… I suppose the truth of it is I knew I no longer had to break myself to be hers. I am Sylaise’s servant. That doesn’t make me _less_ anymore. It’s just the truth.”

Your voice is hoarse from the telling of it all. You feel your story ending and wish you could drag it out forever. Dorian has been silent throughout the whole telling and you have been willfully blind to his reactions. It all must come to an end sometime.

“After my Vallaslin healed, my Keeper finally showed me the path I was to walk. Sylaise is the Hearthkeeper. She is the weaver and the healer and the painter. But she is also the one who binds the spirits of the people to the home-tree. The bond that makes a clan is not blood, it is her. I was destined to grow a new home-tree, to lead a new clan. That isn’t something that happens normally, you understand. Clans don’t just form around a Keeper from nothingness and lost sheep. Clans are old. Some clans get too big and split. More die. The fate the Keeper said I was destined for was something entirely different. She knew no more of the future than you or I do, but a Keeper always has a sense. The winds of my fate all pointed to something not heard of for a thousand years.

“But this,” you gesture at your scar, “ _blood magic_ , it changed everything. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been the one to perform the ritual. I was, according to my Keeper, warped off of my path. I would never lead my own clan. I would never even take her place as Keeper, as a First should. She was furious, but even she was forced to admit that there was no wisdom in denying what I’d done to myself, as she put it. As a child, I was full of possibility. But somewhere along the way I became an adult and now, for better or worse, I can only ever be this.”

You let the stillness linger for a moment as your story ends. Then you breathe in and sit up to face Dorian.

You believe you’ve quite broken him.

“You don’t look like you’re taking this well,” you hazard.

“Taking this well?” he spouts dumbly, his face frozen in a state of perpetual shock. “I’m sorry, but how exactly does one manage to take a revelation of this degree _well_?”

You wince. That you were anticipating a negative reaction doesn’t lessen the blow. You almost offer to leave before you remember you’re in your own quarters. A good excuse does quickly pop to mind, however.

“I should probably go and see what Cassandra wanted,” you start, but he pulls you back down on the bed the moment you move.

“Fasta vasse!” he swears. “The mine!”

You are suddenly reminded of the rather magnificent ice mine threatening to flash freeze your limbs the moment you step off the bed.

“And secondly,” he continues, “you are an abject fool if you think you can just walk away after a story like that!”

You think that’s possibly a positive reaction? With Dorian it is always bit difficult to tell.

“Let me see if I have this straight,” he says, kneading at his temples. “You were born… _female_ , raised as a young elven girl, and then you underwent a blood magic ritual to, to what? How do I even attempt to summarize this?”

“Become a man,” you sigh, knowing as you do how pointless it is to try and explain it to even someone as intelligent as Dorian. They could never quite grasp on to the truth of it. Most would only ever see a woman who passed for a man. The closest they ever came to the truth was acknowledging, like his keeper, that there was no denying his manhood at this point. Even that left out much of the truth, but you supposed a simplified truth was the better than the alternative.

“Would I be right in assuming that your fool plan actually succeeded?”

“Do I look like a woman to you?” you snap. Dorian doesn’t deserve your ire, but you can’t help but to hear older, crueler voices in his.

“I’m sorry, I’m just not used to stories of blood magic being anything but cautionary tales,” he snaps back.

“Yes, well, I got lucky,” you say, trying to calm yourself. “Damn lucky.”

“Ha! And not for the last time,” he laughs drily.

“Thank you, the comparison hadn’t occurred to me before now,” you roll your eyes. You’re not sure which scar is uglier, the one on your hand or the one on your stomach.

“To completely reconstruct your body, with only a scar to show for it… If you would have asked me yesterday, I would have told you such a thing was impossible. But then, it’s far from the first impossible thing to occur around you.”

“It’s not just the scar,” you say before you can think about how much you’d rather not go into those particular details right this moment.

Dorian is already impatient for an explanation. You can tell just from the look on his face.

“I can’t have children,” you sigh, hoping that suffices.

“What? How do you know? You do realize that sometimes women are infertile and there’s no telling in which of you the problem lies.”

“Because I can’t produce jism!” you exclaim, resisting the urge to burying your face in your hand. This is far, far from the conversation you want to be having with a man who likely wants nothing more to do with your broken body.

“Ah. Well, I could see how that could do it.”

Of course the conversation doesn’t end there.

“Does it bother you? Not being able to have children?”

“Compared to the alternative? Not overly so.”

“Maker, I—” he starts jovially before the implication of what he’s saying really dawns on him. “Maker, I couldn’t imagine.”

“As much as Sera and Solas and every other bloody person in the whole of Thedas loves to mock me for it, I did love my clan and my people dearly. I do,” you correct yourself. Creators, it’s been so long since you’ve walked among them. “My people are dying. Procreation is actually rather important to us, on the whole.”

“Oh, yes. I’d forgotten. Maintaining the old ways, and all,” Dorian says absentmindedly.

You look over to see where his attention has wandered off to only to find that it’s rather fixed on your face.

“Stop that,” you admonish him.

“What?”

“Stop trying to find the pretty girl in my face,” you sneer.

“If there’s a pretty girl somewhere in there, she’s hid herself too well for me to find,” Dorian teases.

“Don’t,” you warn. There are some places you shouldn’t dare to poke even a nug, much less the Lord Inquisitor.

“Forgive me, I can see how that might come across as crass,” he says, raising his hands in apology.

“Is there anything else you want to ask? Because frankly I’d like to be done with this topic for good once we close the conversation.”

“Only a quarter of a million things. For starters, how was this ritual performed? What instruments did your wandering woman use? She was elven, I assume? Are you sure she wasn’t a demon? And on the subject of demons, which demon did this woman call upon in order to make the trade? Was your fertility and… I’m assuming skin was part of the transaction, judging by that scar. Was that all you traded? Or, I should say she traded, as you weren’t playing an active part in the ritual.”

“Hold on a minute,” you stop him, frankly astonished at what you’re hearing. “Are all your questions about the ritual?”

“As opposed to that charming tale about you finding your one true goddess? Sera is right, you know. You are a bit too elf-y sometimes.”

“What? No! I tell you I was born in another body and you’re more concerned about expanding your knowledge of the arcane? Is it so impossible to see why I might find that shocking?”

“Well, I suppose that is a bit bizarre, but you also survived a magical explosion which tore a hole in the sky and a battle with one of the first darkspawn and his pet archdemon. If your backstory gets any more fantastic and convoluted, no one is ever going to believe you existed.”

You laugh. You can’t help it. It’s like something in your brain just snaps and laugher pours out from the crack.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” you say, waving his confused look off. “Please, let’s continue. This day couldn’t possibly get any worse at this point.”

“…You were having a moment,” Dorian finally observes. “One of those big, revealing moments full of feelings and such.”

“I see now why they call you a genius. No, please, I’d love to continue discussing blood magic with you on my _bed_.”

“We could have stayed on the couch if you hadn’t decided to play devious little monkey on my back.”

“I don’t know what a monkey is,” you sigh, wondering how many glaringly obvious points he’s going to miss before this is done.

“Irrelevant,” he waves your comment away. “This was your ‘sod it all’ moment, wasn’t it?”

“My what?”

“When I decided that my father and the entire Imperium could go and suck a nug’s tiny little teats, I distinctly remember thinking… Sod it all. I like men and I want a proper romance. I want to live a life where I can stand tall without the looming inevitability of everything I’d have to do to stay standing turning me into another sad, pathetic little man like my father, scrounging for power and terrified of anything that could threaten my tiny grasp on the brutal game the Magisterium plays,” Dorian explains. “The comparison isn’t exact, of course. My story is full of charm and righteous indignation. Yours is rather more… Well, it’s rather tragic. No sense in tiptoeing around that sleeping wyvern.”

“Your father threatened to use blood magic against you. How is that charming?” You say, slightly put off by his summarization. The tragedy wasn’t the point. You went on this whole miraculous journey of self-discovery that has shaped you more than getting blown up by a crazy, ancient darkspawn ever could. Every bit of your strength comes from the hard work and fear and self-knowledge it took to get here, and he completely dismisses all of that in favor of “sad” and “blood magic.”

“It’s not. But the part where I ran off to the savage, inhospitable south and joined up with a group of ragtag misfits like myself out to save the world is rather charming, don’t you think?”

He continues when he notes how tedious you’re currently finding him.

“I just meant to point out that you likely found the entire process more emotional than I was previously allowing for, and for that I apologize,” he says, utterly reasonable and sod _him_ for it.

“I’m sorry,” you say, running a hand through your hair. “I’m not handling this well at all. I meant to tell you so much sooner, but I just couldn’t… I was afraid of how you would see me once you knew.”

“You’re not talking about the blood magic, are you?” he asks.

You run your hand through your hair again. Pointless, stupid habit that does nothing to make you feel better. You allow yourself the briefest glance to try and read his expression, but you drop your eyes before you can decipher what you see there. You hate this. You _hate_ this.

Dorian moves to sit behind you. His arms wrap around your bare middle, pulling you nearly onto his lap. He sighs quietly into your neck as he runs his fingers over your scar. You swear you can feel him considering the implications of everything you’ve told him. You don’t know whether to be grateful he’s finally hit the mark or terrified that the moment you feared most has come.

“It is quite the hideous scar,” he whispers in your ear, “but I think I can look past it.”

“Don’t tease me, Dorian. I would rather you walk out of this room now without a single word than have you force yourself to stay out of some sense of loyalty or pity or—”

“I see subtlety is lost on you, as always,” he sighs dramatically.

Dorian places his hand on your crotch and has gotten a good feel of you before your panicked brain can even guess what he’s after.

“Well,” he comments coyly as you scramble out of his reach, “that feels real enough.”

“That’s because it is!” you snap, utterly scandalized. “Do you make a habit of grabbing other men’s cocks?”

You know what a huge misstep it is before the words have even left your mouth.

“Only men I take a particular liking to,” he teases. “Jesting aside, is there anything… _extra_ down there I should know about before your trousers come off? Because that might take a bit of getting used to.”

He’s insane. He is absolutely insane and you love him all the more for it.

“Nothing you wouldn’t expect,” you assure him.

“Expect?” he scoffs. “My dearest, is there one single thing about you which has ever been expected?”

“The scar is the only outward sign,” you explain, grinning despite yourself. “Well, that and the fact that I can’t…”

“How you can manage to boldly banter with the most fearsome creature in all of Thedan history and yet become so utterly undone by the subject of carnal pleasure is beyond my comprehension,” he teases. “So you’re well-formed?”

“I haven’t exactly taken a consensus,” you say, slightly exasperated.

“I suppose I’ve no option but to judge for myself then,” he says mischievously as he crawls over to where you’ve secluded yourself amongst the pillows.

“I’m sure that will be such a hardship for you.”

If you had any doubts remaining about how he saw you now, his kiss surely drives them away.

“There,” he says. “I certainly feel better now that we both know where we stand. Don’t you?”

“Exponentially,” you agree. “Now get rid of that damn mine.”

He gets up off the bed and dismisses the mine with a laugh.

“I’ll tell Cassandra you’re taking a brief nap, shall I?”

“Maker’s breath, I’d forgotten!”

“I’m sure her ghost stories can wait a little longer,” he says, once again pushing you down onto the bed. “If you have that much energy to spare, you could write down a detailed account of everything you remember from that night. It would save you the strain of conversation on the topic.”

“I told her I’d talk to her when I could,” you object to his coddling.

“Fine, but I expect to talk more with you on the morrow,” he says before leaning down and kissing you chastely. “You had best clear time in your schedule for me.”

“Anytime,” you breathe.

“Ha! Don’t go making promises you can’t keep, Inquisitor.”

“You’re right. After I kill Coryphues all my time will be yours.”

“The things you say…”

As always, your pretty words leave him off-balance. It’s fair revenge, you think, given how easily he manages other aspects of your relationship.

“Go on, Inquisitor! Back into the trenches,” he says as he heads for the stairs. “Quickly now, before one of your sheep realizes that they can’t tell their arse from a tea kettle without your aid.”

You give yourself a mere three minutes to compose yourself. This mainly involves walking over to the balcony and screaming at the mountains until it all stops seeming so desperately immediate. And also putting your shirt back on.

Dorian once called you an optimist. After all of these miracles, you think maybe you don’t have any reason not to be.


End file.
